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New Edition of O'Reilly's C# Essentials Updated for the Final Release of C#

Sebastopol, CA--For more than a year, Microsoft has heavily promoted C#
(pronounced C-sharp) as a language that embraces many of the best
features of each of the Visual C++, Visual Basic, and Visual J++
languages and development environments. Created with web services and
applications in mind, C# was designed to combine the rapid development
benefits of Visual Basic with the power and control of C and C++. "C#
Essentials, Second Edition" by Ben Albahari, Peter Drayton & Brad
Merrill (O'Reilly, US $24.95) provides a succinct but thorough overview
of the language to help programmers quickly grasp the fundamentals of
C# programming.

Coauthor Albahari describes C# as an elegant and practical language
designed to give an optimal blend of simplicity, expressiveness, and
performance. "It's similar to what Java would be if Java people were
allowed to forget about backward compatibility and just work on making
the language better," he says.

The new edition of C#
Essentials has been updated to cover the final
release of the C# language. Its efficient presentation of key concepts
serves as a roadmap to the online documentation for the language, while
the many examples included in the book provide much needed context for
would-be C# programmers. In addition to overviews of C#, the Common
Language Runtime (CLR), and the .NET Framework Class Libraries (FCL),
this new edition of C# Essentials covers:

-Every C# language element and its syntax, in reference format,
including new keywords
-The major C# datatypes, with code examples
-Common C# programming tasks
-Interoperation with legacy Win32 APIs and COM components, and the use
of C/C++ style pointers within the managed context of the CLR
-Common development issues

"This is a small, densely packed book," Albahari says. "We wanted to
write a book that would give people a nucleus of knowledge from which
they can explore more specifically, whether from other books or the
Web. C# Essentials contains the core stuff that everyone should
know."

C# Essentials is written for developers who are already familiar with
an object-oriented language such as C++, Java, or Delphi. This book
will help experienced programmers get up to speed quickly on the
language best suited to developing web applications and services on the
new Microsoft .NET platform.

"C# Essentials is the first book to be published on the language that
is more than a rushed out volume that contains little more than a list
of syntax definitions that you could learn just as easily from the
supplied documentation. C# Essentials is currently the best book
available on the subject and ideally suited to the existing Java, C++
or Visual Basic programmer."--vsj.net: The Independent Source for .NET
Developers

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